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Twisted Hate Book Review
Twisted Games is book three in the Twisted series, written by Ana Huang and following Twisted Love and, Twisted Games. This book is slightly longer than the previous two books at 504 pages total it definitely lives up to the hype surrounding it. The Twisted series became a social media favorite following the first book’s release in April of 2021, Twisted Hate followed in January 2022 to its already doting fans. Book three follows Josh Chen (book one Ava’s older brother) and Jules Ambrose (Ava’s best friend) as they come together in this whirlwind enemies to lovers rollercoaster.
Storyline/ plot
Throughout the previous two books we see glimpses of Josh and Jules’ less than friendly relationship, so we start the story in a bar where Jules is supposedly meeting a guy for a date, until he stood her up. Jules is ready to leave just when Josh Chen shows up sp we are thrown right into their bickering and their dynamic.
Jules does eventually leave the bar, only to come face to face with a gun and a man attempting to steal her money and phone, not long after though does Josh stumble across this scene with the intentions of saving Jules, he sooner wishes he hadn’t.
Jules and Josh have had this ongoing dispute for the last 7 years when Jules was roomed with Ava (Josh’s younger sister) during their first year at Thayer, with the disapproval from Josh, Ava andJules became best friends, deeming Jules and Josh the definition of enemies.
One shared bedroom ski trip to Vermont, and the fact they’ll be working together later, the pair decide to form a truce. Originally focused on keeping their personal grudges away from the workplace, they soon discover they have a lot more in common than first anticipated, leading the pair to extend their truce to more of a no strings attached physical arrangement.
Over the course of a few months Josh seems to get more interested in Jules’ past, or his lack of knowledge about her past. As Jules is forced to come face to face with her past, and deal with the repercussions, she also finds closure in a place she swore she would never return to, inspiring Josh to get some closure of his own.
After all of the fights, the insults, the bickering, the constant back and forth, Josh and Jules both break the first rule of their arrangement: Don’t fall in love.
Writing style
Similarly to the previous two books we do also get a dual POV here with Josh and Jules. With this enemies to lovers we get a mix of other tropes, like best friends brother, forced proximity and one bed so it adds so much to the story than an average enemies to lovers.
Ana Huang also has such a way with writing the most real feeling characters, who all have insane backgrounds and these crazy things happening to them but she writes them in a way it doest feel cheesy, or over dramatic. Each character has so much depth and such real feeling backgrounds that they feel like real people.
Pros/ cons
Overall I loved so many things about this book, like the dynamic between Josh and Jules, the representation of trust and abandonment issues, as well as exploring much darker, deeper subjects like revenge porn, and the effects that can have on a person mentally. I thought the pace of this book was really good, it wasn’t slow burn but it wasn’t rushed either, everything made sense and it had a good suspense throughout but it wasn’t boring at any point.
Conclusion
I gave this book five stars, I personally think it is the best out of the whole series. It was a quick, easy read, with incredible characters, it showed a good continuation from the other books, and I felt like Josh and Jules really were suited well. It was a great balance of building tension and suspense without slowing the book down or dragging the story along, it held my attention as well as keeping me genuinely invested.